Phantom Cabal (Doot)

     I've been having these dreams.

" . . . "

     Mostly, they are of nothing, oddly. Ever have those? Blank dreams? Dreams of nothingness, emptiness, or non-existence?

" . . . "

     It's not so much not dreaming, after all—no, no, because I can hear everything around me, the sounds of night creatures and the buzzing hum of electronics that is ever-present in America, today. It's all there, but the dream is . . . Blank.

" . . . "

     One could equate it to death, in a way: dreams about death, that is. This would be to assume the nihilistic idea of death as oblivion, as it were—I don't buy that. What makes death any different from being alive? Somewhere, the universe changed its mind about your heart beating and brain sparking, but . . . Otherwise, what? So, what?

" . . . "

     What makes dreams so different from being awake, if death is so marginally different than life? Dreams are just another state of unconsciousness, or a separate form of your so-called normal consciousness, at least. Very small difference, there. Very small.

" . . . "

     I dream of nothing. I dream of an eternity of empty darkness, full of ghost sounds and memories of images. I dream of a forever where all is audial and there is nothing to see, nothing to do—no need to do, if you can't see what you're doing, for that matter. What a dream, what a man who has these dreams, what a dreamer to have dreamt such dreams . .. What a word, 'dreamt,' with no true past tense . . .
     What a dream.

" . . . "